H. P. Friedrichs (AC7ZL) Homepage

Guest Gallery

Neat People And Their Nifty
Projects

As the result of publishing
my work in Voice of the Crystal
and Instruments of Amplification, I have had the pleasure to meet (or at least learn
of) a large number of experimenters with interests similar to
mine. As evidenced by the photos and links that follow, all of this
work is impressive, and some of it is downright astonishing. The
information below is ordered alphabetically, by the experimenter's
name.

Grayson Dietrich

Grayson
credits my books with providing the inspiration for this experimental
headphone.

Henry James, here in the good
old U.S.A., sent me these photos some time back. The first shows
one of his experimental globe tubes being lit up. The second photo
depicts a molecular sieve apparatus he was experimenting with to
improve his capability for producing vacuums.

Dr. Stanley Kaplan

A recent issue of the Xtal
Set Society's newsletter showed some of Dr. Kaplan's handiwork,
including his rendition of my
CDROM Radio. The workmanship is very nice and his design, with
some modifications, is still quite faithful to the original. He
was kind enough to send me some color photos for inclusion here.

If you are really interested
in fabricating your own vacuum tubes, you have almost certainly
seen the work of
Claude Paillard. His video
montage (also on Youtube... part-1part-2) depicting
the construction of one of his home-built tubes has pretty much
become the stuff of legend.

Interestingly, I have received
correspondence from two of Claude's countrymen, each engaged in
experimentation that is near and dear to my heart. Jean-Jacques
has been tinkering with homemade point-contact transistors, not
unlike those that appear in Instruments
of Amplification:

Serge Pierre

Serge Pierre, on the other
hand, has been tinkering with experimental tubes in the style of
the dynamic-vacuum tubes in IOA.
He sent me these photos of some of his interesting equipment:

Stephanie Simek

If you assumed that crystal radio
experimentation was the exclusive domain of men, you'd be mistaken.
I was contacted some time ago by Stephanie Simek, who posed
a series of questions related to primitive radio. After we'd corresponded
a number of times and several weeks had passed, she contacted me
with photos of an art exhibit she'd created and displayed in a gallery
in Portand, OR.

The art piece is a functional
crystal radio that seems to occupy the better part of an entire
room. It's constructed with copper foils, wire, and what appear
to be samples of copper ore. The detector is a pyrite detector.
She writes:

Hi Pete! Just wanted to let you know I was able to get my radio working
after a lot of trial and error. I was not able to use a nonpowered
speaker because of all of the building's interference and outside noise,
but I was still pleased with the results. Thought you'd like to see
some photos. On a side note, I did make a working speaker from a
meteorite, charged/magnetic hematite, a hand-wound copper coil, and a
steel sheet for another project. Thanks again so much for all your
help, I really appreciated it.

Some additional detail can be found here.
Stephanie's web site is here.

From Japan, I recently received
email from Januar Taka. He sent me some pictures of his experiments
with electromechanical amplifiers like
the ones that appear in Instruments
of Amplification. His amplifier is said to produce 10 dB
worth of gain. Note the attractive wooden cabinet of the finished
instrument. Taka, by the way, has also built some clever and fascinating
model steam machinery, including numerous engines, boilers, and
valving. At least one of his engines has been mounted in a radio-controlled
boat. I encourage you to check
out his Youtube channel here.

Yahoo Group: Home Transistor

Finally, there is now an entire
Yahoo newsgroup devoted to the construction of, and experimentation
with, homebrew transistors. You can find that group here.

Aleksander Zawada

Let's not overlook the work
of wizard
Aleksander Zawada of Poland. In some respects, his work is like
Claude Paillard's, though it appears that much more of the detail
work is done freehand.

I Want You!

Do you like to tinker with the
kinds of projects that appear in mybooks?
Have you replicated, adapted, or expanded upon one of my designs,
and built a thing of beauty? Contact me!
I would like to hear from you! I'd be happy to post images of your
work in this gallery of neat people and their nifty projects!